Is there a mobile version of poa?

rbridges

rbridges

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rbridges
I may have overlooked it, but this forum is kinda busy on my iPhone. Is there a setting somewhere?
 
The best solution is to use the app "tapatalk" which this board supports. It's a free download from the appstore.
 
I use the forum almost exclusively on Tapatalk. When I have free time, I am usually not in front of a PC.
 
Tapatalk works fine. The update had some pluses and minuses, but I still like it.
 
Sorry, but an application that dupes unsuspecting website admin to install software that spams popups to users who don't install it fits my definition of "virus" and installing it and recommending it to others falls one step (a very small step) above pushing viruses to others.

Shameful.
 
I use Tapatalk (it's certainly better than viewing POA on your phone on the web), but the latest update has been a disaster.
 
Not anybody else's definition of a virus and frankly if it bothers you complain to the SITE ADMINS not griping about tapatalk. It's a one line change to the vBulletin template to get rid of the popup that informs the user about the availability of TAPATALK for the forum.
 
flyingron said:
Not anybody else's definition of a virus and frankly if it bothers you complain to the SITE ADMINS not griping about tapatalk. It's a one line change to the vBulletin template to get rid of the popup that informs the user about the availability of TAPATALK for the forum.
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Popups on every forum is acceptable behavior from you?
 
SkyHog said:
Popups on every forum is acceptable behavior from you?
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Every forum doesn't have popups. If the site admins don't care to disable the TAPATALK popup that's their issue. Some actually think the popup is a good idea (over on the tapatalk forum it's about a 50-50 shot). I support both TAPATALK and FORUMRUNNER on my site and I can tell you TAP is a world better.

If you don't like it, ***** to the managing council here. If they want help in disabling it, I'll be glad to help them if they ask.
 
Make sure if you are unhappy with tapatalk's update you go let them know in their support forum. Unfortunately their CEO suffers from the same problem that allowed a 777 to belly flop at SFO. He needs to hear more from the public.
 
dottat said:
Make sure if you are unhappy with tapatalk's update you go let them know in their support forum. Unfortunately their CEO suffers from the same problem that allowed a 777 to belly flop at SFO. He needs to hear more from the public.
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Been over there. That definitely isn't his problem. He's completely deaf to user input.

He had someone post that they'll make a couple of minor changes to the new craptacular user interface, and it'll maybe be out in March or April.

Meanwhile the coders there are so bad they didn't even put a one line check into the code to ask the OS the date so they could disable the holiday splash message after the holiday season. They actually need another version to make it through Apple's release process to get rid of it. That tells you quite a bit about their company right there.

Word on their own forums is they started downhill after a $5M capital injection by a VC. Which is pretty common in tech. Probably told the VC some fibs about their growth rate the VC didn't check well during due-diligence and now they've ****ed off everyone who paid for the app and none of us will be buying again.

I bet the VC indirectly kills them through unreasonable demands to monetize screen real estate in the new App.

Sadly the market seems to be Tapatalk and Forerunner and both seem to suck in different ways. There's a market there for a really solid mobile reader for web forums. Or one could even say there's a big architectural win to be had by creating a platform agnostic open API.

vBulletin isn't the greatest software either, it's just popular...
 
denverpilot said:
Been over there. That definitely isn't his problem. He's completely deaf to user input.

He had someone post that they'll make a couple of minor changes to the new craptacular user interface, and it'll maybe be out in March or April.

Meanwhile the coders there are so bad they didn't even put a one line check into the code to ask the OS the date so they could disable the holiday splash message after the holiday season. They actually need another version to make it through Apple's release process to get rid of it. That tells you quite a bit about their company right there.

Word on their own forums is they started downhill after a $5M capital injection by a VC. Which is pretty common in tech. Probably told the VC some fibs about their growth rate the VC didn't check well during due-diligence and now they've ****ed off everyone who paid for the app and none of us will be buying again.

I bet the VC indirectly kills them through unreasonable demands to monetize screen real estate in the new App.

Sadly the market seems to be Tapatalk and Forerunner and both seem to suck in different ways. There's a market there for a really solid mobile reader for web forums. Or one could even say there's a big architectural win to be had by creating a platform agnostic open API.

vBulletin isn't the greatest software either, it's just popular...
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Yep...my name over there is similar to here. I have been one of the few talking to their vc partners. I am not letting this go having paid three times for an app they simply abandoned and hosed many times now.

They actually stated they wanted to make the app a facebook/pinterest like app that would be for the non-male and less technically inclined.
 
dottat said:
Yep...my name over there is similar to here. I have been one of the few talking to their vc partners. I am not letting this go having paid three times for an app they simply abandoned and hosed many times now.

They actually stated they wanted to make the app a facebook/pinterest like app that would be for the non-male and less technically inclined.
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Yep. They've been following a script about complainers. You know, the people who bought something and expected it to stay the way they bought it. People who spent money on it. People who wanted a forum reader.

We are just "complaining power users".

In other words, they purposefully want to dumb down the app to the drooling non-forum readers, who just want to look at pretty pictures of food, standard Internet users.

They make sure all the (very few) staff who actually participate in their forums, rehash that "power user" phrase over and over.

In the process of slapping this new version out, they also didn't follow any of the Apple user interface guidelines at all, and things are significantly less intuitive in the UI. It's scattered across multiple screens that pop into the main area from all directions, and very little thought was placed on flow of task, or anything like that.

Ironically, they actually created a UI that only power users can figure out. Funny stuff right there.

I saw this happen at another company that accepted VC money. Once you take that money, if you don't have a very clear goal and very clear product plan, all it takes is one VC with the ears of upper management who wanted something completely different than what your company actually makes, to take over upper management meetings with fear that the VC money (doled out in increments, usually) will walk... Their misguided desire becomes the new marching order and the place starts building stuff their users never wanted.

They get a whole lot of yes-men for their money. The place usually goes through many years of revamping itself and the VC destroys the original company purpose. Anyone at lower levels who says, "this is really going to **** off our customers" is told the decision is made and to march. Right off the cliff.

The only thing helping them survive this right now is a severe lack of competition.
 
As stated, the thing that's being griped about is a considered "feature" by many of the customers (who are the people running the forums, NOT the forum users). Again, if a forum user wants to disable the popup, it's a one liner.
 
Maybe somewhere along the line the vBulletin folks will adopt bootstrap.
 
I'm still holding out for a PoA NNTP server.
 
I tried to like Tapatalk, but the user interface didn't seem very clean or intuitive, and it seemed to like making decisions about what it chose to present to me. By contrast, Forum Runner has a much cleaner interface, but is buggy and doesn't seem to enjoy the same forum support as Tapatalk. As a result, I eventually dumped Tapatalk and just use the web browser, even on the phone (which is a pain).

BeechTalk has a pretty nifty built-in simplified web presentation for phones. It seems to work fairly well for basic functions, and doesn't require an app to access.


JKG
 
I noticed BeechTalk's phone-specific format. I thought it was a good idea. The bottom of the home page has a link "switch to mobile style." It is easy for the user, with nothing more than a browser.

Another good thing is they send out a periodic email with a list of Best of Beechtalk highlights, with links. I never bought a Beech, but I still visit the site sometimes, with encouragement from the Best Of emails.
 
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JGoodish said:
I tried to like Tapatalk, but the user interface didn't seem very clean or intuitive, and it seemed to like making decisions about what it chose to present to me. By contrast, Forum Runner has a much cleaner interface, but is buggy and doesn't seem to enjoy the same forum support as Tapatalk. As a result, I eventually dumped Tapatalk and just use the web browser, even on the phone (which is a pain).

BeechTalk has a pretty nifty built-in simplified web presentation for phones. It seems to work fairly well for basic functions, and doesn't require an app to access.
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I'm in the minority right now in agreeing that separate versions is the way to go. At best, anything done with responsive design will be a compromise, mainly in the sense of not using layout and design features on the desktop version that would enhance desktop users' experience if you didn't have to worry about scaling it down to postage stamp-sized screens.

Contrary to what cynic believe, ads aren't the biggest problem. Image ads will scale like any other images, and Google and other companies that use text-based contextual ads are coming up with JS to accommodate their ads to different viewports. The problem is non-advertising design and layout elements that cannot be scaled while maintaining their visual appeal and usability.

Videos and Flash content, for example, don't scale reliably. Neither do vertical menus or anything else in vertical columns. Those columns can be coded to push themselves elsewhere in mobile viewports, but that often reduces their functionality (especially in the case of menus) or makes them intrusive when their purpose was to amplify the adjacent content. The same thing goes for anchored and wrapped supplementary text boxes, selectors, dynamic feeds, and many other in-context elements. They simply can't be scaled in a way that preserves their usability and visual appeal.

What winds up happening in responsive design is that you code for mobile and ignore the desktop other than making sure that your mobile-optimized site doesn't look like absolute **** at desktop resolution. Anything that can't scale simply isn't used -- even if it would enhance the desktop users' experience.

Using two versions gets around most of these these limitations with minimal compromise. You can still use the same content, but you can code the respective versions to optimize the layout to each experience. Accessory content elements that simply won't scale (such as vertical menus and other columns, videos, feeds, and yes, ads) can re-coded to preserve the content itself but render it in a different format that's more appropriate for the mobile viewport. That's more than you can pull off using only responsive design.

But my opinion is scoffed at nowadays. The dominant view is that the exact same site should be scalable to any viewport from 320px wide to as much as 1920px wide. Why? Why not offer both desktop and mobile users sites that are lovingly crafted to maximize their usefulness and visual appeal to their respective users? So what if that means that the user has to click or tap a single icon to be taken to the site that's been crafted especially for them? Is that such a big hardship in return for a customized experience once they're there?

To use an aviation example, I compare the dominant thinking on this issue to a rule stating that a Northwing ultralight trike should be scalable into a Gulfstream V, but without using anything that the Northwing trike doesn't have. It simply doesn't make sense.

Rich
 
See all this lovely text, Rich? That's all I need or want in a forum reading app. Which as much as I hate the rest of the new Tapatalk, at least it still gets right and even enhanced with a better font.

Scale all the ads / graphics / uses eye candy one likes... I don't want them at all.

Text. That's enough. ;)

4b10d0af3726b724ad5c90a4bba75f14.jpg
 
My general approach is "default deny". My daily driver browser (firefox) is configured for no cookies, images, javascript, java, or flash, with RequestPolicy shooting down most cross-site activity. Anything that requires a login gets the smallest whitelist required to make the site work. When needed, I go to a more capable (images, js, cookies, but still no java for flash) but still sandboxed browser.

Back on topic, IIRC there is/was a way to get an RSS feed for PoA...

denverpilot said:
Text. That's enough. ;)

4b10d0af3726b724ad5c90a4bba75f14.jpg
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